French Troops To Fill In For Cowardly Germans
We told you about this a couple of weeks ago…Americans and Canadians are getting shot at while Germans are making streudel in the kitchen.
PARIS (Reuters) - France may send hundreds of ground troops to east Afghanistan where NATO-led forces are fighting al Qaeda-backed insurgents, Le Monde newspaper reported on Tuesday.
It said the move would be part of a new Afghan policy being worked out by President Nicolas Sarkozy and his advisers.
France has about 1,900 soldiers under NATO’s Afghan command, most of them based in relatively calm Kabul, and Le Monde said the fresh troops would be deployed outside the capital.
“Their destination would be zones of potentially fierce fighting, preferably the eastern region of Afghanistan close to the tribal areas of Pakistan,” it said.
Early last year, France withdrew 200 special forces soldiers who had been operating under U.S. command in Afghanistan, but Le Monde said Paris was now expected to sanction the return of the special forces. About 50 remained to train Afghan commandos.
A presidential spokesman declined to confirm or deny the newspaper report. “The president has not made a decision. We are in discussion with our partners, inside NATO but not exclusively,” he said.
An alliance source said the plan was one of a number of options that France was discussing with allies ahead of an April summit in Bucharest at which alliance leaders will look to give new impetus to the security mission.
Under the plan, the deployment of French soldiers to the east would free up U.S. forces there to go and help Canadian troops fighting insurgents in the south.
“Our understanding is that there is no decision on this. There is a long way to go until Bucharest,” said the source.
Washington is heading a campaign for what it calls a fairer sharing of the burden in the fight against Taliban insurgents. Britain, Canada, Poland and others have backed the U.S. demand.
Germany, Italy and Spain have troops in relatively secure areas and have refused to send troops to southern and eastern provinces where the militants are most active.
At a meeting in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius this month, NATO defense ministers with troops fighting the Taliban in the south of Afghanistan backed calls by the United States for more countries to send forces there.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said last week the alliance’s future rested on its mission in Afghanistan.
Earlier this month, senior Canadian officials had talks in Paris on a possible offer of French support for 2,500 Canadian troops in southern Afghanistan.
Since his election in May, Sarkozy has sent more combat aircraft to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan and beefed up French efforts to train the Afghan army.
(Reuters)
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The Germans are retreating, the French are advancing, Hillary is making sense, Europeans are fighting back against the muslims in the streets.
Where am I and how did I get here? I don’t remember walking into any physics labs or occult stores lately…
February 26th, 2008 at 2:24 pmI would not say German are cowards, it’s not in Merkek’s agenda at the moment, ; she’got a lot to manage opposition among the parties that are part of her government.
Well, at least we give a chance to our soldiers to get the experience of what the combats will be in the future
February 26th, 2008 at 2:25 pmJust don’t expect the majority of the soldiers to actually be French. The French have a Foriegn Legion for a reason.
February 26th, 2008 at 2:31 pmAlright France! go get some!
February 26th, 2008 at 2:31 pmAdam it’aint ment that the legion will go there, paratroopers ! the legionnaires have some missions in Guyane, in many places in Africa, in Lebanon ; they are there more to assure the protection of the infrastructure, white population… to disconnect the remains of bombs in Lebanon, and stability
February 26th, 2008 at 2:36 pmHey, don’t forget your
February 26th, 2008 at 2:42 pmFranchie:
“Coward is, as coward does.”
February 26th, 2008 at 3:01 pmtoo bad for me, there are legionnaires in Afghanistan since 2007/10
Afghanistan : 2ème REG/ OMLT, détachement du génie (3ème compagnie)
they are there as instructors and for the renseignments services
ANA: Armée nationale afghane
February 26th, 2008 at 3:04 pmOMLT: Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team
GCM: Groupement commando montagne
SRIO: Section de renseignement et d’intervention offensive Coy: Equipe composée d’un capitaine, de deux sous-officiers infanterie, d’un infirmier, d’un transmetteur, et d’un spécialiste génie. Cette équipe est destinée à aider le commandant d’unité de l’ANA pour l’instruction de son personnel, mais aussi à prendre les bons choix lors des engagements opérationnels.
FOB: Forward operating base (poste avancé)
TIC: Troups in contact (troupes au contact de l’ennemi)
Kandak: Régiment de l’ANA.
CAS: Compagnie d’administration et de soutien
*Colonel Chavanat: Chef de corps du régiment
** Lieutenant-colonel Bonini: Chef du bureau opérations instruction du régiment, présent lui aussi sur le thêatre au sein des OMLT.
Actually I kind of feel bad for the German soldiers. You think they don’t want to be out hunting taliban?
The Bundeswher knows that the German army has a reputation for being pretty kick ass, even if they do pick fights with the wrong people. I bet the rank and file are dying for a chance to prove themselves.
February 26th, 2008 at 5:17 pm“The Bundeswher knows that the German army has a reputation for being pretty kick ass, even if they do pick fights with the wrong people. I bet the rank and file are dying for a chance to prove themselves.”
You know they are, as are the French soldiers, it will be good to see them kicking some taliban ass!!
February 26th, 2008 at 6:27 pmWe should get the Wehrmacht…err…Bundeswehr into this. Resurrect Irwin Rommel and Gen. Ludendorff and have a freakin’ field day with the Taliban. The Germans have a genius for high-tech, high-quality hardware and for being, as said earlier, kick-ass.
Just the same, its nice to see the French taking up the slack. They used to kick ass under Napoleon. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they can do it again.
February 26th, 2008 at 7:02 pmCan’t the French send in Charles the Hammer, Charlemagne, and the rest of the Franks? I think they had a little bit of success against the Islamic hordes.
While you’re at it, add a few guys who dealt with the Algerians in the 50’s. The French military was quite comfortable with twisting arms and taking other anti-insurgent measures.
God bless Sarkozy (and that really hot babe he just married)
February 26th, 2008 at 8:25 pmHopefully, Conservative German leader Merkel will realize that true conservatives don’t run from a fight, or let others do the dirty work. Maybe they will be inspired by the aggressive French (did I just say that…??!!
) agenda that Sarkozy is pushing.
One good piece of news for us Canadians is that the Germans just let us have a bunch of Leopard tanks to supplement our forces in Afghanistan - now the Taliban will be looking down the barrel of some serious heavy firepower!!
So, I guess the Germans aren’t a complete loss yet 
February 26th, 2008 at 9:01 pmThe Germans have been pacified/liberalized beyond repair. The French, good Lord, I never thought I’d see the day, are entering in to a rebirth of manhood.
I never thought I’d look forward to visiting France again!
February 26th, 2008 at 10:23 pmhey men,
you only have a regard at us when you want us to make something for you, other than that, your MSM permanently are making fun on us or bashing us.
Our army had many courageous facts to be proud of.
The thing is, you only hear of the Legion, because that the only corps that can advertise in the MSM, to get volontaries.
you can’t say that Dien dien Phu was a surrending, even if we had to leave the field, nor that was because of a foreign legion defense : lots of frenchs were in there, Alain Delon got there too ; I use to know a few that had been there, and I witnesse that, compared to Johnny, they were worse “hit”, kinda dephased with the reality.
Though our army won Algeria war ; the independance was a political decision that costed a terrorist attack against de Gaulle from dissident army generals.
Ask the African terrirories if they don’t praise our soldiers ; I bet if they weren’t there many more genocides would have had happened.
Not counting the special missions like highjackings… piracy
And we beat the Germans many times : the 30 years war, Napoleon in Iena, 1870, (1918, 1945 with your help, though De Gaulle had 1,300,000 men under him at the end of the war.)
February 27th, 2008 at 2:06 am“you only have a regard at us when you want us to make something for you, other than that, your MSM permanently are making fun on us or bashing us.”
I think someone made a reference to alternate univeses earlier?
Our MSM is slavish, slobbering, French wanna-bes. Are you kidding franchie? They want us all to swallow euro-socialism hook, line, and sinker, as you all did. No, my dear franchie, they absolutely adore you.
February 27th, 2008 at 5:13 amThat helicopter is too clean. Looks like a hanger queen. Time to turn up some dust.
February 27th, 2008 at 6:53 amTed B,
uh, because you only look at your opposite
February 27th, 2008 at 7:50 amThe helicopter is clean cause it’s new, that’s the new 745 that entered service juste one year ago, and this picture as bee taken during the first works between the chopper and soldiers!And for those who think that the combattant in french army are mostly foreigners because of the french foreign legion,, konw that legion is just a division ( around 10 000 soldiers, for an overall armed forces of 400000), and that a lot of legionnaires are ferench (with belgian, canadian or swiss nationalitie) and know that the legion is not the main force!they are not special forces at all, they are a elite force, they are not part of the french cos (socom).
March 28th, 2008 at 10:29 am